CategoryScience

Science is based on a shared respect for the scientific method—the principle that, by gathering and analyzing data and information, scientists and others can draw conclusions that are robust and generalizable across cultures and ideologies. Scientists furthermore assume that disagreements can be resolved by more facts. So when people object to the reality of climate… Read More

March 7, 2018Comments Off on The biggest part of my carbon footprint is travelLife, Science

Texas Tech University Climate Science director Katharine Hayhoe thinks about her professional and personal carbon footprint all the time, and like many other scientists, she’s come to the conclusion that flying less is the best way to reduce it. As a prominent climate science communicator, she is asked to speak at numerous events each year… Read More

February 18, 2018Comments Off on Scientists Can Connect with Skeptics over Shared Risks of Climate ChangeCommunication, Science

It is a scientist’s worst nightmare — that the facts are not enough to be convincing. But climate change skeptics are not “blank slates” who can be swayed to accept the facts of climate change with more education or different religious leanings, said Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist from Texas Tech University, in a plenary… Read More

Like the best science communicators, Hayhoe does not hold anything back when it comes to the details of models and hypotheses. In a recent CNN interview, she was asked about the role of climate change in forming the hurricane trifecta that struck the US and Caribbean last year: Irma, Harvey, and Maria. Hayhoe explained that… Read More

February 5, 2018Comments Off on Does Arctic governance hold the key to achieving climate policy targets?Policy, Science

Arctic feedbacks are increasingly viewed as the wild card in the climate system; but their most unpredictable and potentially dangerous aspect may lie in the human, rather than the physical, response to a warming climate. If Arctic policy is driven by agendas based on domestic resource development, the ensuing oil and gas extraction will ensure… Read More

Dr Katharine Hayhoe is a professor in the department of political science at Texas Tech University and director of its Climate Science Center. Here she discusses the future of climate modelling, in an interview with Carbon Brief. Our Creative Commons license: you are welcome to reproduce unadapted material in full for non-commercial use, credited ‘Carbon Brief’ with a link to the original article.

Since the dawn of the industrial age, humans have been pumping increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning coal, oil and gas. Researchers at the Mauna Loa Observatory, perched on the side of a volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island, have measured atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas since 1958. That first year,… Read More

Hurricane Harvey has taught us many lessons, but the most valuable may be the oldest lesson of all, one we humans have been learning – and forgetting – since the dawn of time: how much we all have to lose when climate and weather disasters strike. The risks we face from disasters depend on three… Read More

ExxonMobil’s deliberate attempts to sow doubt on the reality and urgency of climate change and their donations to front groups to disseminate false information about climate change have been public knowledge for a long time, now. Investigative reports in 2015 revealed that Exxon had its own scientists doing its own climate modeling as far back… Read More

about me

I write about the things I'm interested in: the fascinating nuances of climate science, why a changing climate matters to real people, how we're going to solve it, and what faith has to do with fixing this global challenge.